November 13, 2019
The impact of global warming is rarely included in standard macroeconomic forecasts, even over 20-30 year time horizons. This partly reflects the perception that the economic effects of global warming are unlikely to become significant until the second half of this century and even then, will cost no more than a few percentage points of world GDP.
November 11, 2019
More news on the patchy effects of Brexit on the UK economy comes in the latest Labour Market Outlook from the CIPD. The report claims that Brexit uncertainty has yet to take its toll on employers’ hiring expectations, with both public and private sector employers expecting staff numbers to increase in the final quarter of 2019. There has been a surge of confidence among public sector employers on increasing both pay and staff numbers in the next quarter. Although still positive, private sector pay award expectations have decreased, narrowing the gap between the public and private sector. The forward-looking indicator surveyed 1,016 UK employers in September 2019 on their recruitment, redundancy and pay intentions. (more…)
November 11, 2019
The new generation of smart cities should embrace new technologies and fresh approaches to combat their growing list of challenges, claims a new report from ABI Research. In its new whitepaper, 5 Ways Smart Cities Are Getting Smarter (registration), ABI suggests that digital twins and urban modeling, resilient cities, circular cities, micro-mobility, and smart spaces as the five new urban strategy shifts that will make smart cities smarter in the new ways they need. (more…)
November 5, 2019
The World Economic Forum is creating a new partnership which it claims will harness the potential of technology innovation and smart policy to fast-track the circular economy. WEF claims that SCALE 360 will collaborate with government, business, civil society and entrepreneurs around the world to find bright new ideas that will help us cut the waste in the world’s economies. It defines a circular economy as a regenerative approach to production and consumption, in which products and materials are redesigned, recovered and reused to reduce environmental impacts. Research shows that this transition could generate $4.5 trillion in additional economic output by 2030. (more…)
November 4, 2019
The Brexit impasse is contributing to perceptions that the UK Commercial Property Market is in the downturn phase of the property cycle, according to the Q3 2019 RICS UK Commercial Property Market Survey. The latest results suggest that the highest proportion of respondents sensing the overall market is in the downturn phase of the property cycle since the series began in 2015 (+62 percent up from +53 percent in Q2), with anecdotal evidence suggesting that Brexit is having an increasingly detrimental impact on market activity. (more…)
November 4, 2019
Chicago’s office market was named the greenest in the U.S. for the third year in a row as the level of green office building trend continues to increase in the nation’s largest cities, according to the sixth annual Green Building Adoption Index by CBRE, Maastricht University and the University of Guelph. The researchers claim that green-certified office space across America’s 30 largest office markets has reached 42.2 percent up from 41.9 percent the year before, marking a new high. (more…)
November 1, 2019
The use of mindfulness techniques in the corporate world could actually do more harm than good to employees, having little more than a ‘band aid’ or ‘quick fix’ effect, according to new research from Durham University Business School. (more…)
October 30, 2019
Automation is not likely to eliminate millions of jobs any time soon — but the U.S. and other countries still need vastly improved policies if people are to build better careers and share prosperity as technological changes occur, according to a new MIT report about the workplace of the future. The report, which represents the initial findings of MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future, claims to puncture conventional wisdom and builds a nuanced picture of the evolution of technology and jobs.
October 25, 2019
The best workplaces are always focused on people. Which is why many of the great pioneers of workplace thinking are from the social sciences, including disciplines such as psychology, ethnography and anthropology. These are the people who have shared the insights that help us to understand the characteristics of great office design. In particular, this relies on an awareness of the ways in which people interact in particular spaces. (more…)
October 23, 2019
Lloyds Banking Group, Unilever the CBI, Bupa and the John Lewis Partnership are among the major firms and other organisations that have signed up to an agreement that aims to transform the approach to mental health in the workplace. The Mental Health at Work Commitment is a promise to adopt six standards which have been developed with mental health charities, large employers and trade organisations. (more…)
October 21, 2019
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is calling on the Chancellor Sajid Javid to bring forward radical interventions to address an unprecedented long-term slump in small business confidence, slowing economic growth and a widening trade deficit when he publishes the 2019 Autumn Budget on 6 November. In a letter to the Chancellor, the group calls for a major reduction in business rates bills for small firms, as thousands struggle to stay afloat amid spiralling operating costs. (more…)
October 29, 2019
Here is how you should handle racial discrimination in the workplace
by Karen Holden • Comment, Legal news, Workplace